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Title: Hymen

Author: Hilda Doolittle

Release Date: May 2, 2009 [EBook #28666]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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Transcriber's Note

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document.

HYMEN

By

H. D.

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1921

FOR BRYHER AND PERDITA

They said:
 she is high and far and blind
 in her high pride,
 but now that my head is bowed
 in sorrow, I find
 she is most kind.
We have taken life, they said,
 blithely, not groped in a mist
 for things that are not—
 are if you will, but bloodless—
 why ask happiness of the dead?
 and my heart bled.
Ah, could they know
 how violets throw strange fire,
 red and purple and gold,
 how they glow
 gold and purple and red
 where her feet tread.

Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following periodicals in which certain of these poems have appeared: Poetry (Chicago), The Dial, Contact and The Bookman (New York), The Nation, The Sphere, The Anglo-French Review and The Egoist (London).

CONTENTS

hymen7
demeter15
simaetha19
thetis20
circe21
leda23
hippolytus temporizes24
cuckoo song25
the islands27
at baia30
sea heroes31
"not honey"33
evadne34
song35
why have you sought36
the whole white world37
phaedra38
she contrasts with herself hippolyta40
she rebukes hippolyta42
egypt44
helios45
prayer47

[7]

HYMEN

As from a temple service, tall and dignified, with slow pace, each a queen, the sixteen matrons from the temple of Hera pass before the curtain—a dark purple hung between Ionic columns—of the porch or open hall of a palace. Their hair is bound as the marble hair of the temple Hera. Each wears a crown or diadem of gold.

They sing—the music is temple music, deep, simple, chanting notes:

From the closed garden
 Where our feet pace
 Back and forth each day,
 This gladiolus white,
 This red, this purple spray—
 Gladiolus tall with dignity
 As yours, lady—we lay
 Before your feet and pray:
Of all the blessings—
 Youth, joy, ecstasy—
 May one gift last
 (As the tall gladiolus may
 Outlast the wind-flower,
 Winter-rose or rose),
 One gift above,
 Encompassing all those;
For her, for him,
 For all within these palace walls,
 Beyond the feast,
 Beyond the cry of Hymen and the torch,
 Beyond the night and music
 Echoing through the porch till day.

[8]The music, with its deep chanting notes, dies away. The curtain hangs motionless in rich, full folds. Then from this background of darkness, dignity and solemn repose, a flute gradually detaches itself, becomes clearer and clearer, pipes alone one shrill, simple little melody.

From the distance, four children's voices blend with the flute, and four very little girls pass singly before the curtain, small maids or attendants of the sixteen matrons. Their hair is short and curls at the back of their heads like the hair of the chryselephantine Hermes. They sing:

Where the first crocus buds unfold
 We found these petals near the cold
 Swift river-bed.
Beneath the rocks where ivy-frond
 Puts forth new leaves to gleam beyond
 Those lately dead:
The very smallest two or three
 Of gold (gold pale as ivory)
 We gatherèd.

When the little girls have passed before the curtain, a wood-wind weaves a richer note into the flute melody; then the two blend into one song. But as the wood-wind grows in mellowness and richness, the flute gradually dies away into a secondary theme and the wood-wind alone evolves the melody of a new song.

Two by two—like two sets of medallions with twin profiles distinct, one head slightly higher, bent forward a little—the four figures of four slight, rather fragile taller children, are outlined with sharp white contour against the curtain.

The hair is smooth against the heads, falling to the shoulders but slightly waved against the nape of the neck. They are looking down, each at a spray of winter-rose. The tunics fall to the knees in sharp marble folds. They sing:

Never more will the wind
 Cherish you again,
 Never more will the rain.
Never more
 Shall we find you bright
 In the snow and wind.
[9]
The snow is melted,
 The snow is gone,
 And you are flown:
Like a bird out of our hand,
 Like a light out of our heart,
 You are gone.

As the wistful notes of the wood-wind gradually die away, there comes a sudden, shrill, swift piping.

Free and wild, like the wood-maidens of Artemis, is this last group of four—very straight with heads tossed back. They sing in rich, free, swift notes. They move swiftly before the curtain in contrast to the slow, important pace of the first two groups. Their hair is loose and rayed out like that of the sun-god. They are boyish in shape and gesture. They carry hyacinths in baskets, strapped like quivers to their backs. They reach to draw the flower sprays from the baskets, as the Huntress her arrows.

As they dart swiftly to and fro before the curtain, they are youth, they are spring—they are the Chelidonia, their song is the swallow-song of joy:

Between the hollows
 Of the little hills
 The spring spills blue—
 Turquoise, sapphire, lapis-lazuli
 On a brown cloth outspread.
Ah see,
 How carefully we lay them now,
 Each hyacinth spray,
 Across the marble floor—
 A pattern your bent eyes
 May trace and follow
 To the shut bridal door.
Lady, our love, our dear,
 Our bride most fair,
 They grew among the hollows
 Of the hills;
 As if the sea had spilled its blue,
 As if the sea had risen
 From its bed,
 And sinking to the level of the shore,
 Left hyacinths on the floor.
 [10]

There is a pause. Flute, pipe and wood-wind blend in a full, rich movement. There is no definite melody but full, powerful rhythm like soft but steady wind above forest trees. Into this, like rain, gradually creeps the note of strings.

As the strings grow stronger and finally dominate the whole, the bride-chorus passes before the curtain. There may be any number in this chorus. The figures—tall young women, clothed in long white tunics—follow one another closely, yet are all distinct like a procession of a temple frieze.

The bride in the center is not at first distinguishable from her maidens; but as they begin their song, the maidens draw apart into two groups, leaving the veiled symbolic figure standing alone in the center.

The two groups range themselves to right and left like officiating priestesses. The veiled figure stands with her back against the curtain, the others being in profile. Her head is swathed in folds of diaphanous white, through which the features are visible, like the veiled Tanagra.

When the song is finished, the group to the bride's left turns about; also the bride, so that all face in one direction. In processional form they pass out, the figure of the bride again merging, not distinguishable from the maidens.

Strophe

But of her
 Who can say if she is fair?
 Bound with fillet,
 Bound with myrtle
 Underneath her flowing veil,
 Only the soft length
 (Beneath her dress)
 Of saffron shoe is bright
 As a great lily-heart
 In its white loveliness.

Antistrophe

But of her
 We can say that she is fair.
 We bleached the fillet,
 Brought the myrtle;
 To us the task was set
 Of knotting the fine threads of silk:
 We fastened the veil,
 And over the white foot
 Drew on the painted shoe
 Steeped in Illyrian crocus.
 [11]

Strophe

But of her,
 Who can say if she is fair?
 For her head is covered over
 With her mantle
 White on white,
 Snow on whiter amaranth,
 Snow on hoar-frost,
 Snow on snow,
 Snow on whitest buds of myrrh.

Antistrophe

But of her,
 We can say that she is fair;
 For we know underneath
 All the wanness,
 All the heat
 (In her blanched face)
 Of desire
 Is caught in her eyes as fire
 In the dark center leaf
 Of the white Syrian iris.

The rather hard, hieratic precision of the music—its stately pause and beat—is broken now into irregular lilt and rhythm of strings.

Four tall young women, very young matrons, enter in a group. They stand clear and fair, but this little group entirely lacks the austere precision of the procession of maidens just preceding them. They pause in the center of the stage; turn, one three-quarter, two in profile and the fourth full face; they stand, turned as if confiding in each other like a Tanagra group.

They sing lightly, their flower trays under their arms.

Along the yellow sand
 Above the rocks
 The laurel-bushes stand.
 Against the shimmering heat
 Each separate leaf
 Is bright and cold,
 And through the bronze
 Of shining bark and wood
 Run the fine threads of gold.
[12]
Here in our wicker-trays,
 We bring the first faint blossoming
 Of fragrant bays:
Lady, their blushes shine
 As faint in hue
 As when through petals
 Of a laurel-rose
 The sun shines through,
 And throws a purple shadow
 On a marble vase.
(Ah, love,
 So her fair breasts will shine
 With the faint shadow above.)

The harp chords become again more regular in simple definite rhythm. The music is not so intense as the bride-chorus; and quieter, more sedate, than the notes preceding the entrance of the last group.

Five or six slightly older serene young women enter in processional form; each holding before her, with precise bending of arms, coverlets and linen, carefully folded, as if for the bride couch. The garments are purple, scarlet and deep blue, with edge of gold.

They sing to blending of wood-wind and harp.

From citron-bower be her bed,
 Cut from branch of tree a-flower,
 Fashioned for her maidenhead.
From Lydian apples, sweet of hue,
 Cut the width of board and lathe.
 Carve the feet from myrtle-wood.
Let the palings of her bed
 Be quince and box-wood overlaid
 With the scented bark of yew.
That all the wood in blossoming,
 May calm her heart and cool her blood
 For losing of her maidenhood.

The wood-winds become more rich and resonant. A tall youth crosses the stage as if seeking the bride door. The music becomes very rich, full of color.[13]

The figure itself is a flame, an exaggerated symbol; the hair a flame; the wings, deep red or purple, stand out against the curtains in a contrasting or almost clashing shade of purple. The tunic, again a rich purple or crimson, falls almost to the knees. The knees are bare; the sandals elaborately strapped over and over. The curtain seems a rich purple cloud, the figure, still brighter, like a flamboyant bird, half emerged in the sunset.

Love pauses just outside the bride's door with his gift, a tuft of black-purple cyclamen. He sings to the accompaniment of wood-winds, in a rich, resonant voice:

The crimson cover of her bed
 Is not so rich, nor so deeply bled
 The purple-fish that dyed it red,
 As when in a hot sheltered glen
 There flowered these stalks of cyclamen:
(Purple with honey-points
 Of horns for petals;
 Sweet and dark and crisp,
 As fragrant as her maiden kiss.)
There with his honey-seeking lips
 The bee clings close and warmly sips,
 And seeks with honey-thighs to sway
 And drink the very flower away.
(Ah, stern the petals drawing back;
 Ah rare, ah virginal her breath!)
Crimson, with honey-seeking lips,
 The sun lies hot across his back,
 The gold is decked across his wings.
 Quivering he sways and quivering clings
 (Ah, rare her shoulders drawing back!)
 One moment, then the plunderer slips
 Between the purple flower-lips.

Love passes out with a crash of cymbals. There is a momentary pause and the music falls into its calm, wave-like rhythm.

A band of boys passes before the curtain. They pass from side to side, crossing and re-crossing; but their figures never confuse one another, the outlines are never blurred. They stand out against the curtain with symbolic gesture, stooping as if to gather up the wreaths, or swaying with long stiff branch as if to sweep the fallen petals from the floor.[14]

There is no marked melody from the instruments, but the boys' voices, humming lightly as they enter, gradually evolve a little dance song. There are no words but the lilt up and down of the boys' tenor voices.

Then, as if they had finished the task of gathering up the wreaths and sweeping the petals, they stand in groups of two before the pillars where the torches have been placed. They lift the torches from the brackets. They hold them aloft between them, one torch to each two boys. Their figures are cut against the curtain like the simple, triangular design on the base of a vase or frieze—the boys' heads on a level, the torches above them.

They sing in clear, half-subdued voices.

Where love is king,
 Ah, there is little need
 To dance and sing,
 With bridal-torch to flare
 Amber and scatter light
 Across the purple air,
 To sing and dance
 To flute-note and to reed.
Where love is come
 (Ah, love is come indeed!)
 Our limbs are numb
 Before his fiery need;
 With all their glad
 Rapture of speech unsaid,
 Before his fiery lips
 Our lips are mute and dumb.
Ah, sound of reed,
 Ah, flute and trumpet wail,
 Ah, joy decreed—
 The fringes of her veil
 Are seared and white;
 Across the flare of light,
 Blinded the torches fail.
 (Ah, love is come indeed!)

At the end of the song, the torches flicker out and the figures are no longer distinguishable in the darkness. They pass out like shadows. The purple curtain hangs black and heavy.

The music dies away and is finally cut short with a few deep, muted chords.

[15]

DEMETER

I

Men, fires, feasts,
 steps of temple, fore-stone, lintel,
 step of white altar, fire and after-fire,
 slaughter before,
 fragment of burnt meat,
 deep mystery, grapple of mind to reach
 the tense thought,
 power and wealth, purpose and prayer alike,
 (men, fires, feasts, temple steps)—useless.
Useless to me who plant
 wide feet on a mighty plinth,
 useless to me who sit,
 wide of shoulder, great of thigh,
 heavy in gold, to press
 gold back against solid back
 of the marble seat:
 useless the dragons wrought on the arms,
 useless the poppy-buds and the gold inset
 of the spray of wheat.
Ah they have wrought me heavy
 and great of limb—
 she is slender of waist,
 slight of breast, made of many fashions;
 they have set her small feet
 on many a plinth;
 she they have known,
 she they have spoken with,
 she they have smiled upon,
 she they have caught
 and flattered with praise and gifts.
But useless the flattery
 of the mighty power
 they have granted me:
 for I will not stay in her breast
 the great of limb,
 though perfect the shell they have
 fashioned me, these men!
[16]
Do I sit in the market place—
 do I smile, does a noble brow
 bend like the brow of Zeus—
 am I a spouse, his or any,
 am I a woman, or goddess or queen,
 to be met by a god with a smile—and left?

II

Do you ask for a scroll,
 parchment, oracle, prophecy, precedent;
 do you ask for tablets marked with thought
 or words cut deep on the marble surface,
 do you seek measured utterance or the mystic trance?
Sleep on the stones of Delphi—
 dare the ledges of Pallas
 but keep me foremost,
 keep me before you, after you, with you,
 never forget when you start
 for the Delphic precipice,
 never forget when you seek Pallas
 and meet in thought
 yourself drawn out from yourself
 like the holy serpent,
 never forget
 in thought or mysterious trance—
 I am greatest and least.
Soft are the hands of Love,
 soft, soft are his feet;
 you who have twined myrtle,
 have you brought crocuses,
 white as the inner
 stript bark of the osier,
 have you set
 black crocus against the black
 locks of another?
 [17]

III

Of whom do I speak?
Many the children of gods
 but first I take
 Bromios, fostering prince,
 lift from the ivy brake, a king.
Enough of the lightning,
 enough of the tales that speak
 of the death of the mother:
 strange tales of a shelter
 brought to the unborn,
 enough of tale, myth, mystery, precedent—
 a child lay on the earth asleep.
Soft are the hands of Love,
 but what soft hands
 clutched at the thorny ground,
 scratched like a small white ferret
 or foraging whippet or hound,
 sought nourishment and found
 only the crackling of ivy,
 dead ivy leaf and the white
 berry, food for a bird,
 no food for this who sought,
 bending small head in a fever,
 whining with little breath.
Ah, small black head,
 ah, the purple ivy bush,
 ah, berries that shook and spilt
 on the form beneath,
 who begot you and left?
Though I begot no man child
 all my days,
 the child of my heart and spirit,
 is the child the gods desert
 alike and the mother in death—
 the unclaimed Dionysios.
 [18]

IV

What of her—
 mistress of Death?
Form of a golden wreath
 were my hands that girt her head,
 fingers that strove to meet,
 and met where the whisps escaped
 from the fillet, of tenderest gold,
 small circlet and slim
 were my fingers then.
Now they are wrought of iron
 to wrest from earth
 secrets; strong to protect,
 strong to keep back the winter
 when winter tracks too soon
 blanch the forest:
 strong to break dead things,
 the young tree, drained of sap,
 the old tree, ready to drop,
 to lift from the rotting bed
 of leaves, the old
 crumbling pine tree stock,
 to heap bole and knot of fir
 and pine and resinous oak,
 till fire shatter the dark
 and hope of spring
 rise in the hearts of men.
What of her—
 mistress of Death—
 what of his kiss?
Ah, strong were his arms to wrest
 slight limbs from the beautiful earth,
 young hands that plucked the first
 buds of the chill narcissus,
 soft fingers that broke
 and fastened the thorny stalk
 with the flower of wild acanthus.
Ah, strong were the arms that took
 (ah evil, the heart and graceless,)
 but the kiss was less passionate!

[19]

SIMAETHA

Drenched with purple,
 drenched with dye, my wool,
 bind you the wheel-spokes—
 turn, turn, turn my wheel!
Drenched with purple,
 steeped in the red pulp
 of bursting sea-sloes—
 turn, turn, turn my wheel!
(Ah did he think
 I did not know,
 I did not feel—
 what wrack, what weal for him:
 golden one, golden one,
 turn again Aphrodite with the yellow zone,
 I am cursed, cursed, undone!
 Ah and my face, Aphrodite,
 beside your gold,
 is cut out of white stone!)
Laurel blossom and the red seed
 of the red vervain weed,
 burn, crackle in the fire,
 burn, crackle for my need!
 Laurel leaf, O fruited
 branch of bay,
 burn, burn away
 thought, memory and hurt!
(Ah when he comes,
 stumbling across my sill,
 will he find me still,
 fragrant as the white privet,
 or as a bone,
 polished in wet and sun,
 worried of wild beaks,
 and of the whelps' teeth—
 worried of flesh,
 left to bleach under the sun,
 white as ash bled of heat,
 white as hail blazing in sheet-lightning,
 white as forked lightning
 rending the sleet?)

[20]

THETIS

I

On the paved parapet
 you will step carefully
 from amber stones to onyx
 flecked with violet,
 mingled with light,
 half showing the sea-grass
 and sea-sand underneath,
 reflecting your white feet
 and the gay strap crimson
 as lily-buds of Arion,
 and the gold that binds your feet.

II

You will pass
 beneath the island disk
 (and myrtle-wood,
 the carved support of it)
 and the white stretch
 of its white beach,
 curved as the moon crescent
 or ivory when some fine hand
 chisels it:
 when the sun slips
 through the far edge,
 there is rare amber
 through the sea,
 and flecks of it
 glitter on the dolphin's back
 and jewelled halter
 and harness and bit
 as he sways under it.

[21]

CIRCE

It was easy enough
 to bend them to my wish,
 it was easy enough
 to alter them with a touch,
 but you
 adrift on the great sea,
 how shall I call you back?
Cedar and white ash,
 rock-cedar and sand plants
 and tamarisk
 red cedar and white cedar
 and black cedar from the inmost forest,
 fragrance upon fragrance
 and all of my sea-magic is for nought.
It was easy enough—
 a thought called them
 from the sharp edges of the earth;
 they prayed for a touch,
 they cried for the sight of my face,
 they entreated me
 till in pity
 I turned each to his own self.
Panther and panther,
 then a black leopard
 follows close—
 black panther and red
 and a great hound,
 a god-like beast,
 cut the sand in a clear ring
 and shut me from the earth,
 and cover the sea-sound
 with their throats,
 and the sea-roar with their own barks
 and bellowing and snarls,
 and the sea-stars
 and the swirl of the sand,
 and the rock-tamarisk
 and the wind resonance—
 but not your voice.
[22]
It is easy enough to call men
 from the edges of the earth.
 It is easy enough to summon them to my feet
 with a thought—
 it is beautiful to see the tall panther
 and the sleek deer-hounds
 circle in the dark.
It is easy enough
 to make cedar and white ash fumes
 into palaces
 and to cover the sea-caves
 with ivory and onyx.
But I would give up
 rock-fringes of coral
 and the inmost chamber
 of my island palace
 and my own gifts
 and the whole region
 of my power and magic
 for your glance.

[23]

LEDA

Where the slow river
 meets the tide,
 a red swan lifts red wings
 and darker beak,
 and underneath the purple down
 of his soft breast
 uncurls his coral feet.
Through the deep purple
 of the dying heat
 of sun and mist,
 the level ray of sun-beam
 has caressed
 the lily with dark breast,
 and flecked with richer gold
 its golden crest.
Where the slow lifting
 of the tide,
 floats into the river
 and slowly drifts
 among the reeds,
 and lifts the yellow flags,
 he floats
 where tide and river meet.
Ah kingly kiss—
 no more regret
 nor old deep memories
 to mar the bliss;
 where the low sedge is thick,
 the gold day-lily
 outspreads and rests
 beneath soft fluttering
 of red swan wings
 and the warm quivering
 of the red swan's breast.

[24]

HIPPOLYTUS TEMPORIZES

I worship the greatest first—
 (it were sweet, the couch,
 the brighter ripple of cloth
 over the dipped fleece;
 the thought: her bones
 under the flesh are white
 as sand which along a beach
 covers but keeps the print
 of the crescent shapes beneath:
 I thought:
 between cloth and fleece,
 so her body lies.)
I worship first, the great—
 (ah, sweet, your eyes—
 what God, invoked in Crete,
 gave them the gift to part
 as the Sidonian myrtle-flower
 suddenly, wide and swart,
 then swiftly,
 the eye-lids having provoked our hearts—
 as suddenly beat and close.)
I worship the feet, flawless,
 that haunt the hills—
 (ah, sweet, dare I think,
 beneath fetter of golden clasp,
 of the rhythm, the fall and rise
 of yours, carven, slight
 beneath straps of gold that keep
 their slender beauty caught,
 like wings and bodies
 of trapped birds.)
I worship the greatest first—
 (suddenly into my brain—
 the flash of sun on the snow,
 the fringe of light and the drift,
 the crest and the hill-shadow—
 ah, surely now I forget,
 ah splendour, my goddess turns:
 or was it the sudden heat,
 beneath quivering of molten flesh,
 of veins, purple as violets?)

[25]

CUCKOO SONG

Ah, bird,
 our love is never spent
 with your clear note,
 nor satiate our soul;
 not song, not wail, not hurt,
 but just a call summons us
 with its simple top-note
 and soft fall;
not to some rarer heaven
 of lilies over-tall,
 nor tuberose set against
 some sun-lit wall,
 but to a gracious
 cedar-palace hall;
not marble set with purple
 hung with roses and tall
 sweet lilies—such
 as the nightingale
 would summon for us
 with her wail—
 (surely only unhappiness
 could thrill
 such a rich madrigal!)
 not she, the nightingale
 can fill our souls
 with such a wistful joy as this:
nor, bird, so sweet
 was ever a swallow note—
 not hers, so perfect
 with the wing of lazuli
 and bright breast—
 nor yet the oriole
 filling with melody
 from her fiery throat
 some island-orchard
 in a purple sea.
[26]
Ah dear, ah gentle bird,
 you spread warm length
 of crimson wool
 and tinted woven stuff
 for us to rest upon,
 nor numb with ecstasy
 nor drown with death:
only you soothe, make still
 the throbbing of our brain:
 so through her forest trees,
 when all her hope was gone
 and all her pain,
 Calypso heard your call—
 across the gathering drift
 of burning cedar-wood,
 across the low-set bed
 of wandering parsley and violet,
 when all her hope was dead.

[27]

THE ISLANDS

I

What are the islands to me,
 what is Greece,
 what is Rhodes, Samos, Chios,
 what is Paros facing west,
 what is Crete?
What is Samothrace,
 rising like a ship,
 what is Imbros rending the storm-waves
 with its breast?
What is Naxos, Paros, Milos,
 what the circle about Lycia,
 what, the Cyclades'
 white necklace?
What is Greece—
 Sparta, rising like a rock,
 Thebes, Athens,
 what is Corinth?
What is Euboia
 with its island violets,
 what is Euboia, spread with grass,
 set with swift shoals,
 what is Crete?
What are the islands to me,
 what is Greece?

II

What can love of land give to me
 that you have not—
 what do the tall Spartans know,
 and gentler Attic folk?
What has Sparta and her women
 more than this?
What are the islands to me
 if you are lost—
 what is Naxos, Tinos, Andros,
 and Delos, the clasp
 of the white necklace?
 [28]

III

What can love of land give to me
 that you have not,
 what can love of strife break in me
 that you have not?
Though Sparta enter Athens,
 Thebes wrack Sparta,
 each changes as water,
 salt, rising to wreak terror
 and fall back.

IV

"What has love of land given to you
 that I have not?"
I have questioned Tyrians
 where they sat
 on the black ships,
 weighted with rich stuffs,
 I have asked the Greeks
 from the white ships,
 and Greeks from ships whose hulks
 lay on the wet sand, scarlet
 with great beaks.
 I have asked bright Tyrians
 and tall Greeks—
 "what has love of land given you?"
 And they answered—"peace."

V

But beauty is set apart,
 beauty is cast by the sea,
 a barren rock,
 beauty is set about
 with wrecks of ships,
 upon our coast, death keeps
 the shallows—death waits
 clutching toward us
 from the deeps.
Beauty is set apart;
 the winds that slash its beach,
 swirl the coarse sand
 upward toward the rocks.
[29]
Beauty is set apart
 from the islands
 and from Greece.

VI

In my garden
 the winds have beaten
 the ripe lilies;
 in my garden, the salt
 has wilted the first flakes
 of young narcissus,
 and the lesser hyacinth,
 and the salt has crept
 under the leaves of the white hyacinth.
In my garden
 even the wind-flowers lie flat,
 broken by the wind at last.

VII

What are the islands to me
 if you are lost,
 what is Paros to me
 if your eyes draw back,
 what is Milos
 if you take fright of beauty,
 terrible, torturous, isolated,
 a barren rock?
What is Rhodes, Crete,
 what is Paros facing west,
 what, white Imbros?
What are the islands to me
 if you hesitate,
 what is Greece if you draw back
 from the terror
 and cold splendour of song
 and its bleak sacrifice?

[30]

AT BAIA

I should have thought
 in a dream you would have brought
 some lovely, perilous thing,
 orchids piled in a great sheath,
 as who would say (in a dream)
 I send you this,
 who left the blue veins
 of your throat unkissed.
Why was it that your hands
 (that never took mine)
 your hands that I could see
 drift over the orchid heads
 so carefully,
 your hands, so fragile, sure to lift
 so gently, the fragile flower stuff—
 ah, ah, how was it
You never sent (in a dream)
 the very form, the very scent,
 not heavy, not sensuous,
 but perilous—perilous—
 of orchids, piled in a great sheath,
 and folded underneath on a bright scroll
 some word:
Flower sent to flower;
 for white hands, the lesser white,
 less lovely of flower leaf,
or
Lover to lover, no kiss,
 no touch, but forever and ever this.

[31]

SEA HEROES

Crash on crash of the sea,
 straining to wreck men, sea-boards, continents,
 raging against the world, furious,
 stay at last, for against your fury
 and your mad fight,
 the line of heroes stands, god-like:
Akroneos, Oknolos, Elatreus,
 helm-of-boat, loosener-of-helm, dweller-by-sea,
 Nauteus, sea-man,
 Prumneos, stern-of-ship,
 Agchialos, sea-girt,
 Elatreus, oar-shaft:
 lover-of-the-sea, lover-of-the-sea-ebb,
 lover-of-the-swift-sea,
 Ponteus, Proreus, Ooos:
 Anabesneos, one caught between
 wave-shock and wave-shock:
 Eurualos, broad sea-wrack,
 like Ares, man's death,
 and Naubolides, best in shape,
 of all first in size:
 Phaekous, seas' thunderbolt—
 ah, crash on crash of great names—
 man-tamer, man's-help, perfect Laodamos:
 and last the sons of great Alkinoos,
 Laodamos, Halios and god-like Clytomeos.
Of all nations, of all cities,
 of all continents,
 she is favoured among the rest,
 for she gives men as great as the sea,
 valorous to the fight,
 to battle against the elements and evil:
 greater even than the sea,
 they live beyond wrack and death of cities,
 and each god-like name spoken
 is as a shrine in a godless place.
But to name you,
 we reverent are breathless,
 weak with pain and old loss,
[32] and exile and despair—
 our hearts break but to speak
 your name, Oknaleos—
 and may we but call you in the feverish wrack
 of our storm-strewn beach, Eretmeos,
 and our hurt is quiet and our hearts tamed,
 as the sea may yet be tamed,
 and we vow to float great ships,
 named for each hero,
 and oar-blades, cut out of mountain-trees
 as such men might have shaped:
 Eretmeos and the sea is swept,
 baffled by the lordly shape,
 Akroneos has pines for his ship's keel;
 to love, to mate the sea?
 Ah there is Ponteos,
 the very deeps roar,
 hailing you dear—
 they clamour to Ponteos,
 and to Proeos
 leap, swift to kiss, to curl, to creep,
 lover to mistress.
What wave, what love, what foam,
 for Ooos who moves swift as the sea?
 Ah stay, my heart, the weight
 of lovers, of loneliness
 drowns me,
 alas that their very names
 so press to break my heart
 with heart-sick weariness,
 what would they be,
 the very gods,
 rearing their mighty length
 beside the unharvested sea?

[33]

"NOT HONEY"

Not honey,
 not the plunder of the bee
 from meadow or sand-flower
 or mountain bush;
 from winter-flower or shoot
 born of the later heat:
 not honey, not the sweet
 stain on the lips and teeth:
 not honey, not the deep
 plunge of soft belly
 and the clinging of the gold-edged
 pollen-dusted feet.
Not so—
 though rapture blind my eyes,
 and hunger crisp
 dark and inert my mouth,
 not honey, not the south,
 not the tall stalk
 of red twin-lilies,
 nor light branch of fruit tree
 caught in flexible light branch.
Not honey, not the south;
 ah flower of purple iris,
 flower of white,
 or of the iris, withering the grass—
 for fleck of the sun's fire,
 gathers such heat and power,
 that shadow-print is light,
 cast through the petals
 of the yellow iris flower.
Not iris—old desire—old passion—
 old forgetfulness—old pain—
 not this, nor any flower,
 but if you turn again,
 seek strength of arm and throat,
 touch as the god;
 neglect the lyre-note;
 knowing that you shall feel,
 about the frame,
[34] no trembling of the string
 but heat, more passionate
 of bone and the white shell
 and fiery tempered steel.

EVADNE

I first tasted under Apollo's lips
 love and love sweetness,
 I Evadne;
 my hair is made of crisp violets
 or hyacinth which the wind combs back
 across some rock shelf;
 I Evadne
 was mate of the god of light.
His hair was crisp to my mouth
 as the flower of the crocus,
 across my cheek,
 cool as the silver cress
 on Erotos bank;
 between my chin and throat
 his mouth slipped over and over.
Still between my arm and shoulder,
 I feel the brush of his hair,
 and my hands keep the gold they took
 as they wandered over and over
 that great arm-full of yellow flowers.

[35]

SONG

You are as gold
 as the half-ripe grain
 that merges to gold again,
 as white as the white rain
 that beats through
 the half-opened flowers
 of the great flower tufts
 thick on the black limbs
 of an Illyrian apple bough.
Can honey distill such fragrance
 as your bright hair—
 for your face is as fair as rain,
 yet as rain that lies clear
 on white honey-comb,
 lends radiance to the white wax,
 so your hair on your brow
 casts light for a shadow.

[36]

WHY HAVE YOU SOUGHT

Why have you sought the Greeks, Eros,
 when such delight was yours
 in the far depth of sky:
 there you could note bright ivory
 take colour where she bent her face,
 and watch fair gold shed gold
 on radiant surface of porch and pillar:
 and ivory and bright gold,
 polished and lustrous grow faint
 beside that wondrous flesh
 and print of her foot-hold:
 Love, why do you tempt the Grecian porticoes?
Here men are bent with thought
 and women waste fair moments
 gathering lint and pricking coloured stuffs
 to mar their breasts,
 while she, adored,
 wastes not her fingers,
 worn of fire and sword,
 wastes not her touch
 on linen and fine thread,
 wastes not her head
 in thought and pondering,
 Love, why have you sought the horde
 of spearsmen, why the tent
 Achilles pitched beside the river-ford?

[37]

THE WHOLE WHITE WORLD

The whole white world is ours,
 and the world, purple with rose-bays,
 bays, bush on bush,
 group, thicket, hedge and tree,
 dark islands in a sea
 of grey-green olive or wild white-olive,
 cut with the sudden cypress shafts,
 in clusters, two or three,
 or with one slender, single cypress-tree.
Slid from the hill,
 as crumbling snow-peaks slide,
 citron on citron fill
 the valley, and delight
 waits till our spirits tire
 of forest, grove and bush
 and purple flower of the laurel-tree.
Yet not one wearies,
 joined is each to each
 in happiness complete
 with bush and flower:
 ours is the wind-breath
 at the hot noon-hour,
 ours is the bee's soft belly
 and the blush of the rose-petal,
 lifted, of the flower.

[38]

PHAEDRA

Think, O my soul,
 of the red sand of Crete;
 think of the earth; the heat
 burnt fissures like the great
 backs of the temple serpents;
 think of the world you knew;
 as the tide crept, the land
 burned with a lizard-blue
 where the dark sea met the sand.
Think, O my soul—
 what power has struck you blind—
 is there no desert-root, no forest-berry
 pine-pitch or knot of fir
 known that can help the soul
 caught in a force, a power,
 passionless, not its own?
So I scatter, so implore
 Gods of Crete, summoned before
 with slighter craft;
 ah, hear my prayer:
Grant to my soul
 the body that it wore,
 trained to your thought,
 that kept and held your power,
 as the petal of black poppy,
 the opiate of the flower.
For art undreamt in Crete,
 strange art and dire,
 in counter-charm prevents my charm
 limits my power:
 pine-cone I heap,
 grant answer to my prayer.
No more, my soul—
 as the black cup, sullen and dark with fire,
 burns till beside it, noon's bright heat
 is withered, filled with dust—
[39] and into that noon-heat
 grown drab and stale,
 suddenly wind and thunder and swift rain,
 till the scarlet flower is wrecked
 in the slash of the white hail.
The poppy that my heart was,
 formed to blind all mortals,
 made to strike and gather hearts
 like flame upon an altar,
 fades and shrinks, a red leaf
 drenched and torn in the cold rain.

[40]

SHE CONTRASTS WITH HERSELF HIPPOLYTA

Can flame beget white steel—
 ah no, it could not take
 within my reins its shelter;
 steel must seek steel,
 or hate make out of joy
 a whet-stone for a sword;
 sword against flint,
 Theseus sought Hippolyta;
 she yielded not nor broke,
 sword upon stone,
 from the clash leapt a spark,
 Hippolytus, born of hate.
What did she think
 when all her strength
 was twisted for his bearing;
 did it break,
 even within her sheltered heart, a song,
 some whispered note,
 distant and faint as this:
Love that I bear
 within my breast
 how is my armour melted
 how my heart:
 as an oak-tree
 that keeps beneath the snow,
 the young bark fresh
 till the spring cast
 from off its shoulders
 the white snow
 so does my armour melt.
Love that I bear
 within my heart, O speak;
 tell how beneath the serpent-spotted shell,
 the cygnets wait,
 how the soft owl
 opens and flicks with pride,
 eye-lids of great bird-eyes,
 when underneath its breast
 the owlets shrink and turn.
[41]
You have the power,
 (then did she say) Artemis,
 benignity to grant
 forgiveness that I gave
 no quarter to an enemy who cast
 his armour on the forest-moss,
 and took, unmatched in an uneven contest,
 Hippolyta who relented not,
 returned and sought no kiss.
Then did she pray: Artemis,
 grant that no flower
 be grafted alien on a broken stalk,
 no dark flame-laurel on the stricken crest
 of a wild mountain-poplar;
 grant in my thought,
 I never yield but wait,
 entreating cold white river,
 mountain-pool and salt:
 let all my veins be ice,
 until they break
 (strength of white beach,
 rock of mountain land,
 forever to you, Artemis, dedicate)
 from out my reins,
 those small, cold hands.

[42]

SHE REBUKES HIPPOLYTA

Was she so chaste?
Swift and a broken rock
 clatters across the steep shelf
 of the mountain slope,
 sudden and swift
 and breaks as it clatters down
 into the hollow breach
 of the dried water-course:
 far and away
 (through fire I see it,
 and smoke of the dead, withered stalks
 of the wild cistus-brush)
 Hippolyta, frail and wild,
 galloping up the slope
 between great boulder and rock
 and group and cluster of rock.
Was she so chaste,
 (I see it, sharp, this vision,
 and each fleck on the horse's flanks
 of foam, and bridle and bit,
 silver, and the straps,
 wrought with their perfect art,
 and the sun,
 striking athwart the silver-work,
 and the neck, strained forward, ears alert,
 and the head of a girl
 flung back and her throat.)
Was she so chaste—
 (Ah, burn my fire, I ask
 out of the smoke-ringed darkness
 enclosing the flaming disk
 of my vision)
 I ask for a voice to answer:
 was she chaste?
Who can say—
 the broken ridge of the hills
 was the line of a lover's shoulder,
[43] his arm-turn, the path to the hills,
 the sudden leap and swift thunder
 of mountain boulders, his laugh.
She was mad—
 as no priest, no lover's cult
 could grant madness;
 the wine that entered her throat
 with the touch of the mountain rocks
 was white, intoxicant:
 she, the chaste,
 was betrayed by the glint
 of light on the hills,
 the granite splinter of rocks,
 the touch of the stone
 where heat melts
 toward the shadow-side of the rocks.

[44]

EGYPT

(To E. A. Poe)

Egypt had cheated us,
 for Egypt took
 through guile and craft
 our treasure and our hope,
 Egypt had maimed us,
 offered dream for life,
 an opiate for a kiss,
 and death for both.
White poison flower we loved
 and the black spike
 of an ungarnered bush—
 (a spice—or without taste—
 we wondered—then we asked
 others to take and sip
 and watched their death)
 Egypt we loved, though hate
 should have withheld our touch.
Egypt had given us knowledge,
 and we took, blindly,
 through want of heart,
 what Egypt brought;
 knowing all poison,
 what was that or this,
 more or less perilous,
 than this or that.
We pray you, Egypt,
 by what perverse fate,
 has poison brought with knowledge,
 given us this—
 not days of trance,
 shadow, fore-doom of death,
 but passionate grave thought,
 belief enhanced,
 ritual returned and magic;
Even in the uttermost black pit
 of the forbidden knowledge,
[45] wisdom's glance,
 the grey eyes following
 in the mid-most desert—
 great shaft of rose,
 fire shed across our path,
 upon the face grown grey, a light,
 Hellas re-born from death.

HELIOS

Helios makes all things right:—
 night brands and chokes
 as if destruction broke
 over furze and stone and crop
 of myrtle-shoot and field-wort,
 destroyed with flakes of iron,
 the bracken-stems,
 where tender roots were sown,
 blight, chaff and waste
 of darkness to choke and drown.
A curious god to find,
 yet in the end faithful;
 bitter, the Kyprian's feet—
 ah flecks of whited clay,
 great hero, vaunted lord—
 ah petal, dust and wind-fall
 on the ground—queen awaiting queen.
Better the weight, they tell,
 the helmet's beaten shell,
 Athene's riven steel,
 caught over the white skull,
 Athene sets to heal
 the few who merit it.
[46]
Yet even then, what help,
 should he not turn and note
 the height of forehead and the mark of conquest,
 draw near and try the helmet;
 to left—reset the crown
 Athene weighted down,
 or break with a light touch
 mayhap the steel set to protect;
 to slay or heal.
A treacherous god, they say,
 yet who would wait to test
 justice or worth or right,
 when through a fetid night
 is wafted faint and nearer—
 then straight as point of steel
 to one who courts swift death,
 scent of Hesperidean orange-spray.

[47]

PRAYER

White, O white face—
 from disenchanted days
 wither alike dark rose
 and fiery bays:
 no gift within our hands,
 nor strength to praise,
 only defeat and silence;
 though we lift hands, disenchanted,
 of small strength, nor raise
 branch of the laurel
 or the light of torch,
 but fold the garment
 on the riven locks,
 yet hear, all-merciful, and touch
 the fore-head, dim, unlit of pride and thought,
 Mistress—be near!
 Give back the glamour to our will,
 the thought; give back the tool,
 the chisel; once we wrought
 things not unworthy,
 sandal and steel-clasp;
 silver and steel, the coat
 with white leaf-pattern
 at the arm and throat:
 silver and metal, hammered for the ridge
 of shield and helmet-rim;
 white silver with the dark hammered in,
 belt, staff and magic spear-shaft
 with the gilt spark at the point and hilt.

Printed in England at the Pelican Press, 2 Carmelite Street, London, E.C.

Transcriber's Notes

Page 42: though amended to through ("through fire I see it, ...")

Hyphenation has generally been standardized. However, when a word appears hyphenated and unhyphenated an equal number of times, both versions have been retained (forehead/fore-head).






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